13: A Maximum Ride Fanfiction
by J7W539
Summary: This story takes place after the events of Nevermore but eliminates all events after STWAOES except for the asteroid and virus. As far as the timeline, the asteroid and virus occur about a month after the flock takes down Itex in Germany. I also added a new character to fill in some gaps in the story. This story is told from the POV of this character, Henry.
1. The End is the Beginning

Sitting there, the longrass almost swallowing me whole, looking at the lake, at the trees on the other side. It was so peaceful. I don't know how long we stayed there, my family and I. I just know that when I finally got up, it was dark. I think everyone else was asleep, but I didn't check. I only knew that the youngest, Angel, was asleep. As soon as I was sure, I relaxed. It was the first time in days that we had let ourselves truly rest. But today was too important, and I couldn't sleep.

As soon as I could, I got everyone up, and into the van we had stolen. I turned it on and got us to the road with little hassle. After about a half an hour, we reached a highway, and started south. In the distance, I could just make out the wall of red and orange flames that were crawling up the eastern coast. I could only hope we made it to the city in time.

 _ **We will, I'm sure of it,**_ I heard a small voice, the voice, say in my mind.

 _I thought you were asleep,_ I thought back. I stuffed my thoughts and emotions to the back of my mind where she would never see.

 _ **You can trust me,**_ her voice returned, truly her own. "I trusted you with my secrets. Some of which, no one else knows." She glanced to the back seat at Max.

Was that a note of sadness? _I do trust you, but I still need some privacy. I was just thinking about how this is the end, one way or another. And I'm not sure whether that's good or bad._

 _ **It depends on how this ends.**_

 _I know._

We sat in silence for a few minutes. She probably was waiting to see if I would assume she was asleep, and let my guard down. But once it was obvious I wouldn't, she sighed.

 _ **Wake me when we get to the border.**_

 _I doubt there is still a sign._

 _ **I know that you know where it is.**_

 _Fine— We're at the border._

I could practically feel her rolling her eyes. _**Wake me when we get to the city.**_

 _I will._

I felt her presence leave my mind, and I relaxed once again. I looked ahead, up the now dark road. I could see the city lay ahead, silhouetted against the flames trying to devour our only chance at escape. I looked down ant my wrist, at the watch, the only thing I had left of my time before. It would be my salvation, it would save us all. As long as we could get there. My hands tightened on the wheel as I thought about that. We had to make it.

I woke everyone up 3 hours later, as we came upon the first of the skyscrapers. New York City, it was unrecognizable with the streets deserted. I had to alter my course a few times to avoid collapsed buildings and other debris. But soon we arrived at the freedom tower. Still standing tall.

We got out of the van and looked up the side. I turned toward the south-west and saw my worst fear come to life. The fire was barely a mile away. It was then that I noticed how much I was sweating.

"We need to hurry," I said. "The fire is probably only 10 minutes out."

"How high are we going?" Asked Max, the oldest and leader of our group.

"73 stories," I responded. "So we had better get going."

We ran inside and across the large reception room to the elevators. Max pushed the button and… Nothing happened.

"Stairs anyone?" She asked.

We were on the 9th floor when Iggy heard it. "Is that... crying?"

We all listened hard, I looked around. The staircase was inside a tall column that ran adjacent to the elevator shafts. Along the north side, there were doors at every other landing, leading back into the building. We were between floors, so we climbed to the next landing.

Max opened the door, and immediately, we could all hear what sounded like a kid, crying. We snuck into a long hallway, with doors on both sides. The walls had holes in them in some places, and were missing all together in others. All the doors were open except for the one at the far end of the hallway. I sensed a small child on the other side of the door.

"HELP!" The kid called. She was a girl.

At almost the same time, we heard a door slam open a few floors down.

"Henry," Max turned to me. "Go check the stairs."

I moved back to the stairs as Max gave instructions to the rest of the flock. As soon as I got there, I sensed 3 adults running out of the door to the floor below us. I turned to motion to Max, and saw just as she turned the handle on the closed door.

The moment it started to turn, I realized that this was, in fact, a trap, and it was too late to do anything. Time seemed to move at a crawl as the floor slowly opened up beneath my family. The tile replaced by fire that rose up and consumed everyone. I tried to jump backward, but the explosion raced toward me faster than even I could react. The force pushed me backward, over the handrail and through the window. The fire burned my flesh and I choked on the smoke. I slammed into the side of the next building, and flung my hand out to catch the glass. I hung there for a few seconds, a few precious seconds, and tried to figure out what I would do. My family was dead, I knew that for sure. I had nearly died even though the explosion had only grazed me.

I looked down at my watch. It would only work if I was traveling at terminal velocity. We had been planning to jump off one of the upper floors of the freedom tower, but the explosion had destabilized the building. It would topple soon, so I had to use another building. The one I was on went up to the 67th floor. It wasn't as high as I had been hoping for, but if I propelled myself downward, it might do the trick. I started to climb, using the carbon nanotube gloves that I had designed to stick to the wall. I made it to the top as the freedom tower started to fall… towards me.

I sprinted toward the other side of the building, and grabbed the side. I pulled myself over the edge and downward with all my strength. I was halfway down when I started to doubt whether or not my reality shattering device would work. At this point, however, there was no turning back. I was about 50 feet off the ground when I started to think that I would die. At 11 feet, the LED on my watch display turned green, and I was 4 feet off the ground when I activated it.

 **I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Don't worry, the flock will return later on. Please leave a review with any suggestions.**


	2. Her

I had started getting the visions after the modification. They felt like memories, but they weren't mine. Maybe in another life. The first one happened while I was still at the school. It felt like it went on for hours, but it was only a few seconds long. The first vision told me how to escape. Now I was dead, and where they would never think to look. After I escaped, blowing up the school in the process, I went home. If they thought I was alive, they would never think to look there. It would have been stupid, and therefore it was genius. I was hiding in plain sight.

But this latest vision had been different than the others. The others had been informational, telling me how to escape, about Itex, but this one had had emotion with it. I had never felt an emotion with the visions before.

It took me a few seconds to recover from the vision, and realize that I had fallen off of my chair sometime during it. The teacher was saying something, what was she saying? She was calling my name, she was one of them. No, She couldn't be. No, she was asking me something. Was I alright? No, I wasn't alright! I had just gotten blown up! No, wait that wasn't me. That was the vision. But it had felt so weird.

"Can I go to the nurse please?" I asked as soon as I thought I was able. My voice was a little scratchy, and my throat felt dry. As my teacher signed my hall pass, I knew I felt burns crawling along my chest, fire burning me from the inside out. I spent the rest of the period in the nurse's office, recovering from what everyone said was a panic attack. I hadn't told them about the visions, though. I knew they wouldn't understand.

After I left the nurse, I went straight to lunch, ignoring the other people in the hallway. It wasn't hard, I was mostly in my head, trying to remember the vision. As always, I couldn't remember the details, only the big things. The explosion was obviously the biggest, but there was something else. It was strange though, it was like it was there, but it wasn't there. I didn't even remember getting to the cafeteria or sitting down, All I knew was that I was walking, and then my friend was trying to talk to me.

"I heard that you had another panic attack during last period," He said. "What was it about?" X-man was the only one who knew what the panic attacks really were. The exception that makes the rule.

"It was complicated. I'm not really sure I know what it was about." I whispered. "There was fire everywhere. And everyone except me and a few other people were already dead. And by the end, the people I was with were dead too. And there was an explosion, and I was burning." I rubbed my chest, "I remember that part a little too well."

"Hey Henry." Someone called me from a few tables over. Matt was tall and skinny, with dirty blonde hair, and skin that would rival a white shirt. He was one of the few people that treated me the same after I was kidnapped. "Do that thing you do!" He called. Everyone at his table was staring at me, I barely glanced at them, until I saw her. I felt like I knew her, but I didn't remember from where. She looked so familiar though.

It was then that I got another vision. This one similar to the normal ones, it was just an image. Actually, it was her. Standing in front of a night sky with a city in the background. But there was something different. I was trying to figure out what it was before the image faded, but I couldn't find the difference. It was almost gone when I noticed what I was supposed to learn. The major difference between the her sitting two tables away, and the her standing against the night sky. I was back in the cafeteria, barely a second had passed no one had noticed.

"What thing?" I asked.

"That high pitched beep noise."

Ever since I had gotten back, I had discovered that I could manipulate my vocal cords to make my voice higher and lower. One of the things I did, was make a noise that sounds like a smoke detector when it's low on battery. I thought it was fun, and others thought it was weird. It was like my party trick. But what most people didn't know was that I could do it at frequencies in the range that other animals can hear but dogs can't. And fortunately for me, most mutants could hear those frequencies. Sometimes, when I was bored at night, I would find ways to mess with Itex, without drawing too much attention to myself of course. But scream in that high pitch so loud, that the Erasers would temporarily be unable to focus on anything else.

So I looked at Matt, and let out a short burst of sound. So high, that humans wouldn't be able to hear it, but if what I saw was right…

The girl sitting next to Matt, the one in my vision, started. No one else moved. To them, I hadn't made a sound. But she had heard it, which meant I was right.

I beeped as Matt had called it, and watched the girl leave the cafeteria. I waited a few seconds, and followed her. I waiting by the water fountain, taking a drink whenever anyone passed. After 8 minutes, when I started to think she had just left the building, she walked out of the bathroom. She saw me, and glared. Looking one way, then the other, and pushing me back against the wall. She had her arm pressed across my throat, choking me slightly. If she had been anyone else, I wouldn't of been worried, but she was just as strong as me, which meant she could actually hurt me.

"Who are you? Are you working for them?" She hissed in my ear.

"No." I hissed back, more out of inability to breath correctly than out of indignation. "I would never work with them!"

"Then why are you here?" There was venom dripping from her voice.

"I'm trying to hide in plain sight, but I thought it would be easier if you knew that I knew about you." I started to smile, but gave up when her glare got deeper. "Look, if I was working with them, you would be getting swarmed by Erasers right now, wouldn't you? I have no interest in seeing you get captured."

"Then how do you know about me?"

I heard two students coming down the hall, and apparently, she did too. She let me go and started to walk away. It was a power play. If I were an Eraser, than I would have recognised her dominance and left her alone. Obviously she had done her homework in regards to the behaviors of wolves. But I had the power now. I needed to stop her before she got back to the doors, or I would never get a chance like this again. I could try to grab her arm, but the two people about to come around the corner were teachers, and I wasn't sure how I would explain that. I had to say something that would stop her dead in her tracks.

Before this latest vision, I had had two others, each on several occasions. The first told me how to escape from the school. The second, however, didn't relate to anything in my life at the time. But now I could remember something about that vision that I hadn't recognised as important before. At the beginning of the vision, I was climbing down a ladder into what I later recognised as a large sewer line. When I got to the roof of the tunnel, I grabbed onto the ceiling and climbed along it towards a group of people. I could just make out two of them fighting, and somehow could instantly recognise one of them as the girl. She was holding the other figure, a boy, and trying to push him into the wall behind him. As they were grappling, he slipped on some sewage, and she threw him into the wall. The sound his neck made when he landed, and the angle of his head were nauseating. Everyone was still for moment.

"You really hurt me," he said, and I could recognize his voice as Ari. He was the son of one of Itexion's leading scientists, Jebuline Batchelder. Jeb had been the supervisor of my room of mutants. And the next voice to ring out in the sewers, I recognized as his.

"How could you!" He called as the girl ran down the sewers. "You killed your brother!"

So this girl was either Jeb's daughter, or her mother was Ari's mother. I had a 50/50 chance, but it would work perfectly if I got it right.

I looked at the girl, walking away from me, and looked right at where her eyes would be when she turned around. "Your father, Jeb, was my handler."

She stopped and stood still for a moment. I could hear her breathing deeply. She knew what I meant. She turned around and stared at me. The two teachers walked past and yet, neither of us said anything. In those moments, we each understood each other better than if we had talked for hours. I heard something coming from far off the bell for next period, but I didn't care. Neither did she.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Max."

* * *

I was going to end it there, but because I didn't update as quickly as I would have liked, and the next section is supper short…

Enjoy!

* * *

Almost as soon as she said her name, I felt a pounding move from the back of my head to the front. The lights were suddenly too bright, the children walking out of the cafeteria too loud. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. There was only the pain. Except it was gone. What had I been thinking about?

 _ **You have to get close to her.**_ Angel thought to me. _**It's the only way for you to continue watching her.**_

 _I know, I know. I replied. It's just that I can't believe you're finally letting me meet her._ You're _sure this won't end badly?_

 ** _No, but at this point, it can't make anything worse._**

"Hi," I said to the girl standing at her locker. "You're new here, right?"

She turned toward me. "Yeah, just moved in. I'm Max, by the way." She stuck out her hand.

"Sam," I replied, and shook it.

 _ **Sam?**_ Angle asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

 _If you had a better_ idea, _than why didn't you tell me. You know I can't use my real name, even with her._ Angle didn't respond.

"Hey, you know I'm a highly respected tour guide on google maps," I said. "But I think I could spare some time to give you a tour of the town. If you want."

I studied Max for a response. I could notice the hair on her arm seemed to stand up a little, yet there was no breeze. Her pupils grew slightly, and her breath quickened. If I focused, I could hear her heartbeat a little faster. But any response that would be visible to a human was nonexistent. She wasn't reacting so much to the idea of me asking her out, as she was to the idea that I was, or so she thought, human. Or perhaps it was due to her almost subconscious feelings towards Fang. I saw her on that beach, as I was getting ready to fight those Erasers. And Angel had confirmed what I had suspected.

"I guess I'm free tonight," She responded. "If that's okay with you?"

"Sounds great."

* * *

That night went way better than I had though. We saw a movie, walked around town, and went to the best _ restaurant I've ever gone to. All the while, Angle thinking my ear off. I mostly ignored her, sometimes shutting her out completely. It was during one of these times, while Max and I were eating diner, that Angle scared/surprised me.

 _ **DON'T TURN AROUND!**_ Came the voice in my head. Angle only used the voice with me when it was something important. And, more importantly, she had broken through my barriers. I barely twitched, doing my best to resist the urge to turn around. Whatever was going on must have been important. _**It is!**_

 _Thanks for not yelling this time._ I thought sarcastically. _What's going on?_

 _ **Ari is outside the window, with Max.**_

 _That's impossible. Max is sitting right across the table from me._

 _ **Exactly, she must be some kind of clone, or maybe an android?**_

Now I was sensing the danger. I sensed behind me, but they were on the edge of my range, and on the other side of the window. So instead I studied the Max sitting across from me. I looked at her, sensed her, and analyzed responses.

 _They'll try to replace her._

 ** _I would know._**

 _What if they find a way to trick you?_

 ** _I doubt they could._**

I saw Max's eyes glance toward the window, and widen. She tracked, I assumed Ari, across the window, and then relaxed. I assumed he had left.

 ** _He did._**

 _Alright. Thank you for the heads up, but goodbye._

I shut her out before she could respond and turned my attention back to Max. Noticing her glance at the window a few more times before we left. I had to use all of my self-control to keep myself from doing the same.

* * *

I hope this was not what you guys were expecting. I want to keep surprising you, but I need to know if I'm going too far with this. Please review, even if it's just to say that it sucks. All feedback is welcome!

P.S.  
I still need to check some of the quotes, so please don't kill me.


	3. Ari

I avoided Max for the rest of the week. It wasn't that hard though, I had gone for months without knowing she even existed. The only period that was a problem was lunch. I started "doing my homework" in the library during that time, and it apparently worked. I didn't know what she would say, but I didn't want to have that conversation. She had seen one of my visions, and I'm fairly certain that she won't be fooled by my panic attack story.

By the end of the week, I was having at least 4 visions a day, and unfortunately, people were noticing. They were the same visions that I had had before, mostly the one with the explosion. My parents were talking about a therapist when I wasn't in the room, and all my friends were starting to distance themselves from me. X-man still was the only one I talked to. But even he was starting to drift away. By the time I saw Max again, 2 weeks after we met, I was spending most of my time alone, and usually looking up things online. She came in just as I was finishing up on a course on patching a bullet wound. Most would see that and think it were strange. She recognised it as necessary.

"You've been avoiding me." She said, "Why?"

"I think you know why." I respond.

She looked around, I sensed the room. When we were sure that no one could hear, she lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, "What was that? That day, in the hallway."

She was slightly tense, willing me to tell her the truth, yet expecting that I won't.

I pulled a slip of paper out of my pocket and right an address on it. "If you want to learn the truth," I hand her the paper. "Be there at 9 o'clock, friday evening. Don't be late." I could see the confusion on her face. Before she could ask anything else, I got up, and walked out of the library. Feeling annoyed, and slightly glad she had found me.

* * *

The traffic was very light on this street, but of course, that was why I chose it. I stood waiting, hoping she would come. But with no sign of her at 9:05, I determined that she wasn't coming. I walked over to the manhole cover that led to the sewers, and jumped in. Doing my best to avoid the mysterious sludge, I walked south west following directions that had come from a vision. For all I know, this place doesn't exist, but it was in my head, so it must be true. Yeah, I'm crazy.

Sure enough, though, in the wall of the sewers, there was a large door. Barely noticeable, but definitely not just in my head. The keypad on the wall lights up when I press a button. Was there a keypad in the vision? If there was, I can't remember the combination. I couldn't believe this was happening. I had come all the way there just to be locked out. I should have waited to have the vision again.

I pulled on the door in frustration, and to my surprise, it came off its hinges. When I examined it a little more closely, I discovered that the hinges were badly corroded, and the lock was only a thin piece of metal. I threw the door behind me, against the opposite wall. I could see a light at the bottom of the stairs, but it was dim. I hurried down, trying to keep quiet.

When I reached the bottom, I climbed onto the roof, incase there were any pressure plates on the floor. I moved to the middle of the room and looked around. On the opposite side of the room, there was a sliding door, that I could only assume went back into the building. Down the middle of the room, there were computers covering both sides of a long table. And behind a curtain, I could hear the quiet hum of the servers. As soon as I deemed it safe, I dropped to the ground and went over to a computer. I never came in this room in the vision, so I had no idea how the flock got on to the computers. But I was in luck. Itex had apparently failed to update their operating systems from windows 7, allowing me to use a commonly known backdoor into the system. As I waited for the computer to finish the last steps, I moved to the curtains.

The main reason I was there was to install a spyware program I had created. It would allow me to access all the hidden files from anywhere. However, as I approached the curtain, I sensed that it hid something else. In fact, a lot of something elses. Behind the curtain was row upon row of dog crates. Inside, some of the more viable experiments trembled as I came closer. That was when I remembered that when the flock had come out, they hadn't been alone. They were accompanied by quite a few other enhanced, and mutated. Now I knew from where.

I looked back at the computer I was trying to hack. I knew it still had a few minutes to go, so I tried to find out how to open the crates. Fortunately, they didn't have locks, due to the fact that the prisoners they held were incapable of thinking of escaping. I ran down the isles, throwing open doors, and trying to get the children to start moving. I was just opening the last crates when I heard the sliding door open, followed by the startled scream of a scientist. I grabbed one of the crates that was empty, and tried to heave it toward the sound. I heard the crate connect, and the scientist only screamed louder as he fell to the floor. The last of the children followed the first ones out the door I had come in, and suddenly, I was alone with the scientist. HIs name tag read Randy, and held a tablet that was still on. I walked over and grabbed the tablet, pleased to see that it was currently connected to the encrypted file network. This thing just saved me a ton of time on the computer. I was about to plug in my usb with the spyware, when I realised the scientist was watching me. He had blood running from a gash in his head where the crate hit him, but he was otherwise unharmed. I kicked his head, causing his eyes to roll back, as he fell unconscious. I looked up the hallway leading to the room, and saw no one was coming, yet.

I plugged the tablet into the docking station, and plugged the USB into the other end. After a second, the screen flashed the number 13 and then went blank. After the tablet restarted, I opened it with the scientist's thumb, to see that it appeared to be normal. That was when I became aware of the distant sound of scratching. In a second, I was taken over by adrenaline. I knew what the srableing meant. It meant Erasers, which meant guns, which usually meant pain. I dropped the tablet as I ran to the stairs, taking them 4 at a time. I was half way up when I heard the Erasers start up behind me. They were gaining, and would continue to gain ground until they caught me. I burst into the sewers to find the children all running in the direction of the entrance. I didn't even allow myself the time to wonder how they knew where it was, I just ran. I didn't even make it to the first turn when I felt four claws dig into my calf.

A gunshot rang out almost at the same time, and to my pleasure, I sensed the Eraser that had scratched me fall to the ground. Unfortunately, so did I. I knew about this scene. It had occurred in the vision, without the shredded calf though. I was supposed to be able to fight them all off on my own. 5 packs of 6 Erasers, which was unheard of before that. Then there was another gunshot, followed by another Eraser falling, this one, not even near me. I could just sense on the edge of my range, there was someone shooting. Not from the direction of the other Erasers, but the direction of the exit. I stood up, looking toward the figure. Holding the gun uncertainty in front of her, stood Max. She aimed again and shot, this time missing. I turned back toward the Erasers, none of them shooting. Why?

"She's mine!" I heard one snarl, and my stomach dropped through the floor. I recognised that voice, and I knew the person it belonged to. Ari was Jeb's son, who had grown up in the school. The same day as when Jeb left, the scientists took him into one of the labs and the person that came out was very different. They had made Ari into a super Eraser. He was stronger, yet smaller, faster, and lighter. He was their second try at me, except, they already had them twirled around their finger. There was one other important thing about Ari. He resented Jeb for leaving him, and he also happened to resent Max for being the reason. Back at the school, he would talk about his perfect revenge against Jeb and Max.

The other Erasers backed up as he approached her. She shot at him, but her aim was too unsteady. As he walked past me, Ari stuck his claws into my leg, the same one the other Eraser scratched, and flung me into the wall. It was all I could do to remain conscious as I dragged myself into the shadows above.

Max emptied the chamber at him, but the combination of her nerves, and his reflexes, meant he easily dodged the bullets. Other than that, he move slowly and calmly. I saw Max start to back away, but she ended up backing into a wall. Ari laughed as he came to a stop in front of her.

"Maxy, Maxy, Maxy." He grinned. "You don't know how long I've waited for this. How often I imagined our little reunion. I must say, I wasn't expecting this."

I could see the confusion on Max's face and I willed her not to say what she was about to say.

"Do I know you?"

I groaned inwardly as Ari smiled. This was just how he thought of her. She ruined his life, and yet didn't even recognise him.

"Oh," he laughed. "You do now."

It was then that one of his packmates cried out in pain. Then another. And another. Ari growled as he turned around. But the other Erasers just looked back at him in bewilderment. He turned back to Max just in time to see the anger on her face… as she kicked him where it hurts.

That was when I let go of the door to the stairs, that I was holding over the middle of the group of Erasers. Although it wasn't the heaviest door in the world, it still knocked out 5 Erasers when it landed on their heads. Then I drew the guns I had taken off of two of the Erasers I had knocked out to get Ari's attention. Unlike Max, I had researched how to use a gun properly, and I was also not afraid to. I shot two of the Erasers from above, and then I dropped down onto another one. I used my momentum to take him off his feet, and as we fell, I shot two more Erasers. Looking around, I saw that the numbers the Eraser's initially had were nearly halved, and some of them were still unclear what was going on. In their confusion, I shot two, and threw the guns at two others, hitting them in the heads. Up until that point, I hadn't actually used a gun, and I now realised that they felt a little weird. It was good to know that I could use them, but I was starting to see why Max didn't like them.

I looked over at Max, who had at this point taken out 6 Erasers. This count unfortunately did not include the Ari that was currently running at her, linebacker style.

"Max, watch out!" I called, but it was too late. Ari rammed into her back, taking her off her feet. Before she flew out of his reach, Ari reached out and sliced her across her back, changing her direction at the last minute so she slammed into me. For a moment, we were both disoriented, a pile of limbs. Before we could get back into defensive positions, though, Ari picked me up and threw me down again. I felt blood drip down the back of my head as it hit the concrete floor. I was on the edge of consciousness, and there were still more Erasers.

Another fun fact about Ari - he gets mad very easily, and he can't control his anger. So when he looked around, and saw only 6 other Erasers standing, he began to let out his anger on me. I felt blow after blow rain down at my face, my chest, my stomach, anything he could reach.

After about 30 seconds, he stopped suddenly, and I cracked my eyes to see why. Then immediately wished I hadn't. Ari held up his index finger with one long claw gleaming in the low light. He gazed at it for a second, before looking back to me. His finger began to travel toward my throat, coming to rest directly over my windpipe. It trailed down my chest and back up again, drawing a line of blood as it did so. Just as I was afraid he was ready to kill me, his head jerked over to the left, and he collapsed. Standing there, with another gun in her hand, stood Max. It was then that I noticed how quiet it was. I looked around to see there were no more Erasers standing. I looked back at Ari. He had a thin line of blood trailing from his temple, and only the whites of his eyes showing.

I looked back at Max as she stood there, panting. After a moment, she threw the gun away, and held out a hand to help me up. I took it, and together, we walked back to the exit of the sewers, and toward the light of the city that never sleeps.


End file.
